Picking his battles

Dec 22, 2009, 8:37 PM EST

You can’t exactly say that it’s unexpected – after all, Stephen Harper has long since tried to pick and choose the media outlets that he’ll speak to, or receive questions from in press conferences. And this year, instead of doing a number of end-of-year interviews with the major media outlets, he’s decided to only do two – CTV in English Canada, and TVA in French Canada. (And it probably hasn’t hurt that CTV’s been friendlier to him than most).

This kind of behaviour should be shocking and appalling to most Canadians, and yet, once again I doubt we’ll see much outcry. Meanwhile, Harper apparently said in said interview that he hasn’t ruled out the implementation of a carbon tax – after he spent two years and an election campaigning railing about how it would be such a terrible, awful, no-good job-killer, and that the Liberals were trying to destroy the economy for even suggesting it. Funny how different things look when you’re suddenly in charge.

Incidentally, Harper’s on-again-off-again relationship with Quebec Premier Jean Charest if apparently off again, as Charest tore into Harper for his failure on the environmental file and his comments about how the premiers should have kept their divisions at home rather than air them in Copenhagen.

Even though they weren’t officially meeting, the special committee on Afghanistan heard from witnesses yesterday, while also making use of the platform to wag their fingers and try to shame the government.

And the Supreme Court handed down a major decision that affects free speech – especially for bloggers and journalists in this country. They have created a new legal defence of “responsible communication” which is intended to reduce the kind of libel chill that had previously been built into our speech laws. And while it may not go as far as the similar American law, it’s heartening to see that this change is finally happening.